Printed on nearly every package of food, on almost every bottle or can of beverage, and on menus in countless restaurants are the nutritional facts for the food. Usually at the top of this list of numbers, often in bold type and in a larger point size, is the important number of calories that product contains.
The calorie – also written as the kilogram calorie (kcal), food calorie, dietary calorie, or large calorie – is a unit of energy, specifically the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one liter of water by one degree Celsius. The calorie number on food packages, therefore, refers to the amount of energy per mass of metabolizing the amount of food in a serving.
The number of calories your body needs per day in order to function depends on numerous factors, including but not limited to age, sex, body size, and level of activity.
Men and women usually require a different caloric intake. Most women require around 1,600 calories per day to maintain their current weight, whereas men usually require 2,000 or slightly more. If you want to lose weight or gain weight, the caloric intake should change. A good calorie calculator can be found at www.healthline.com, which will take into account the aforementioned data and will provide results for maintaining, losing, or quickly losing weight.
For decades, the 3500-Calorie Rule maintained that one pound of fat contained 3,500 calories. Therefore, in order to lose one pound, a person needs to burn 3,500 calories while maintaining a normal caloric intake. This would mean needing to burn 500 calories per day in addition to the normal number of calories burned daily in order to lose one pound in one week.
To put that into perspective, a man weighing 175 pounds would need to bicycle outdoors at a moderate pace of 10 mph for 65 minutes in order to burn that amount. And then he’d need to do that again every single day of the week to lose one, single pound.
Although the 3500-Calorie Rule has been proven to be inaccurate time and again, it is still proffered to the public.
Achieving weight loss is more complicated due to a number of factors, not least of which is, as one loses weight, one’s daily caloric intake shifts downward. Strictly following the 3,500-Calorie Rule might result in some weight loss at first, but that loss will eventually reach a plateau.
Combining caloric burning with better eating habits will, over time, be a more effective and a more easily maintained system of weight loss. Eating nutrient-dense foods as opposed to calorie dense foods is a great step toward achieving this.
Nutrient-dense foods are those which will provide you with the vitamins and minerals you need for healthy functioning while not adding much at all to your caloric intake.
Oily fish such as salmon or sardines; green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, and seaweed; cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower; garlic; shellfish like clams, scallops, and mussels; seeds like pumpkin and sunflower; potatoes; berries; eggs; and, thankfully, cocoa, and dark chocolate are only some of many easily accessible nutrient-dense foods.
It is important to note that no single food contains every nutrient we need, so a varied diet of nutrient-dense foods, eaten in moderation, and combined with regular exercise is the best course of action in order to live a healthier, and hopefully longer and happier, life.